


Kintsugi

by gardnerhill



Category: Miss Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Awesome Mrs. Hudson, Community: holmestice, F/F, Fic Exchange, Hurt John Watson, Sherlock is a Brat, Sherlock is a Good Boyfriend, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-24 16:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17103935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Broken people can also be salvaged and made beautiful again.





	Kintsugi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhouffleLover24](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhouffleLover24/gifts).



> _Kintsugi_ is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, making the break part of the object's beauty.

Sherlock is not dead after all.

Wato Tachibana follows the imperious detective's lead, as always. It's the rational thing to do, after all; she can't afford to live on her own. So both of them are back at 221b as if they'd never left.

Wato runs her errands and buys things on Mrs. Hatano's shopping list to save the landlady the trip. She smiles flawlessly as a mask at daily greetings and polite conversation from store owners. She returns to her room.

This is her life now. Do what's needed and only what's needed. Don't get close, don't start conversations, don't be interested, don't react. Be polite to strangers, everyone around her, for everyone is a stranger now and will stay a stranger. Be kind to Mrs. Hatano for letting her stay here even when her rent is difficult. Go back to the room and stay there.

Wake choking back a cry at the dreams, one where she shakes hands with someone – a shopkeeper, a little girl, a smiling young man – and explodes, her shrapnel flying out and killing everyone nearby like a bomb. The worst dreams are the ones with the kind voice, the soft sweet gentle voice telling her to aim at the terrible woman and shoot her to save everyone, and then put the gun to her own head. Wake shaking. Do not think of the roof.

She knows Mrs. Hatano is worried about her and more than worried, since tears mean more than worry. She repeats the worn and transparent lie "I'm fine," and hands over the onions or sweet potatoes or soap and goes to the room that feels like a vault. There she stays. She reads a little – nothing with guns or explosions or friends – and lies on the bed. Sometimes she sleeps.

***

Wato is not the only one going through hell right now.

"I'm not dead!" Sherlock shouts when Wato returns from her errands.

Wato smiles at Sherlock, the same plastic smile she gave her customers at the teahouse. "Yes." She goes into her room.

"I did what I had to do!" Sherlock cries into the deserted main room.

But Wato is far from her now. They may as well be in separate countries, or Sherlock actually dead in that fall with Moriwaki off the Reichenbach Building.

Sherlock angrily saws at her cello, playing all of her most powerful pieces. _Wato-san. Wato, I am here. I am alive. Wato, my friend._

Sherlock dreams too – sees Wato run past her to embrace Toru and smile at her with the virus spreading across her face and throat. Or she sees Toru's blood dripping from her own hands and arms as his reproachful ghost drifts legless toward her. "Ghosts aren't real!" she snaps at the virus-pocked apparition even as the fright wakes her up. (Inspector Reimon and Shibata told her the truth, that Toru Moriya died of the virus he was about to spread through Tokyo and not of her gunshot that felled him. But her dreaming mind hasn't heard yet.) The worst dreams are the ones where Wato walks away from her toward Moriwaki and is enveloped by a white fog, leaving Sherlock alone; those are the dreams where Sherlock wakes up gasping.

Her friend, her only friend, the first friend she's ever had in her whole strange life –

_"And this is Sherlock's friend Wato." "She's not my friend!" "No, I'm not!"_

_"Oh, you're becoming friends." "We're not friends!" "That's right, we're not!"_

– is in trouble and she can't help. That's … unacceptable.

***

Wato needs work if she's to pay the rent. She gets a job washing dishes in a restaurant, but three days later when someone drops a tray full of glasses she collapses and screams in terror at the explosion – and only after half the panicked staff have talked her down does she realize that she is pointing a kitchen knife at the terrified busboy. The manager is kind enough not to press charges, but when she gently suggests that Wato talk to a psychiatrist the woman's hysterical laughter frightens her into calling the emergency number. Wato still has friends in the police; Sergeant Shibata is the one who comes for her, and he drives her back to 221b instead of to a prison cell or a hospital ward.

***

The Dock has been wiped out with Moriwaki's death, her ensnared patients blinking awake to their betrayal like deprogrammed cult followers. They scatter to their abandoned homes and families.

Inspector Reimon and Sergeant Shibata have been reinstated with their names cleared.

Sherlock's brother Kento has been rehired to some inconspicuous and innocuous department, away from the Tokyo main office where he'd been a mid-level government official, officially.

Sherlock sulks in her chair or plays the saddest Bach her cello can produce.

Wato goes out for walks or stays in her room.

None of this can stand much longer.

***

Fortunately, Mrs. Hatano can do more than make sweet potato croquettes.

"She needs to talk to someone!" Mrs. Hatano snaps to Sherlock when Wato is out. A week is a week too long. "She needs a doctor! Her heart is afraid!"

Sherlock's own heart has been afraid for weeks now. "How do we help her, when everyone she comes near has been killed or tried to kill her?" she snaps back, and hides the sob in her throat. "She'll never trust anyone ever again!" _She'll never trust me again. She hates me now._

Mrs. Hatano harrumphs like a disappointed mother. "Sherlock, when a woman is out in public with her friends, does she go to the toilet by herself?"

"Of course not! A group of them go together…" Sherlock trails off. "For safety."

The landlady nods. "Get your phone."

***

When Wato comes back from her errand, a group of people are in the room with Sherlock. Inspector Reimon and Shibata are here. So are Kento Futaba, Sherlock's older brother, and even two of Mrs. Hatano's middle-aged lady friends who meet her for lunch or mah-jongg. Wato pauses in the doorway, staring at everyone, before remembering to put on the fake plastic smile she wears inside now. "Hello. What's going on?"

Mrs. Hatano smiles warmly at her tenant. "Wato. We're all going with you to find you a new counselor."

The smile freezes and falls off Wato's face, replaced by a look of terror. "No. No! No, it's dangerous! No one can help me!" She turns to flee to her room – only to find the door closed and Mrs. Hatano's friend Mrs. Matsuri facing her with a sympathetic but unmoving look.

"Mr. Hayato the busboy will not prosecute you for assaulting him," Shibata says. "But the next person you work with might not be as understanding of PTSD."

"If you're on record as receiving psychiatric help, it'll be better for you," Reimon adds pragmatically.

"If the next doctor you talk to is a scoundrel," Hatano's friend Mrs. Tanaka gestures with her finger, "we'll find that out right away. All of us. We know all the ways of finding things out!"

"They won't dare try anything wicked if they see you have connections to both the police and the government." Kento inclines his head with a little smile.

"And to snooping older ladies," Mrs. Hatano adds; her tea-friends smile. "And the best detective in Tokyo."

Wato shakes like a deer in a trap who sees the hunter coming.

Then Sherlock stands and looks her roommate in the eyes. "Wato. Wato-san. Wato-chan. You are the only one of all of Moriwaki's victims who fought her programming even when it was tearing your mind in two. You saved my life because of that. You are the strongest and bravest person I have ever met. It is time that you learn to believe that of yourself, too."

Wato covers her face with her hands. She feels naked before them all, shamed – as if they can see the ugliness under her skin, the brutal shrapnel-scar, the broken mind. This is futile, they are all wasting their time helping someone who can't be helped.

But this is what she has earned. And she owes Sherlock, because Sherlock grabbed Moriwaki and threw both of them off a building to free Wato's mind from the criminal's control. They want to do this.

Wato Tachibana pulls her hands away from her face. Her eyes are red and wet. She nods.

***

The first counselor is angry – in a quiet, soothing way – when Wato arrives with a retinue. Dr. Hitori is even more angry when the others refuse to leave Wato alone with him to discuss her requirements. He summarily dismisses them all.

Dr. Futari also shoos everyone else out. "We're very sorry," Mrs. Tanaka explains, bowing to the incensed psychologist. "Our friend's last doctor tried to kill her, you see."

Dr. Sannin looks at the large clump of people and explains that she doesn't do group therapy. "No – you do single-person therapy, and have done so for 12 years," Sherlock announces. "You are originally from Naze, and your mother is an accountant for JAL. You went into psychiatry as a reaction to your father's schizophrenia." Sannin almost physically throws Sherlock out, in tears.

Dr. Yonin starts by asking Sherlock intimate questions. "Not ME, you idiot, her!" the detective snaps (to the amusement of Reimon and Shibata), and leads everyone out immediately. "It's just as well," Mrs. Matsuri whispers to Wato. "That was the fourth one. Bad luck."

"A quack," Inspector Reimon says of the fifth name on the list when he sees it, and Shibata nods agreement; they don't go into Dr. Gonin's office.

Kento looks unhappy as they all watch Dr. Rokunin's flustered receptionist dealing with bulky, slipshod paper file folders scattered everywhere. Mrs. Hatano shakes her head as well. "Good at the heart, but not good at the head part of this business. The sort of doctor who sends two and three bills and keeps losing your payment. There must be balance." Out they all go.

Throughout this all, Wato has gone from anger and humiliation, to depression, to resignation. She cannot be helped. Yet she trudges along with the others and nods as they speak to her. This is not to make her well but to punish her for her weakness, and she will endure this as she must.

"Dr. Wato Tachibana?"

This voice is calm and professional. Not soft and soothing.

She refocuses on who has just spoken to her.

A round-faced middle-aged woman in the neutral clothes of a psychologist grins at her and holds out her hand. "I'm Dr. Mariko Shichinin. Your family loves you very much to come here with you."

Wato is about to explain that her father is in Sapporo and she has no other… but everyone around her is smiling and nodding in agreement with this seventh choice. Almost everyone; "I was promised tea," mutters Mrs. Matsuri and is hushed by Mrs. Hatano.

Dr. Shichinin continues to address Wato as if no one else is in the room. "If it will be better for you to have company for the first sessions, I can arrange that. We will not do solo sessions until you are comfortable and feel safe with me."

"And I read her file." Sherlock is not smiling, but there is a satisfaction to her expression. "With her permission."

More humiliation. But perhaps there will be no death here. Wato shakes Dr. Shichinin's hand.

***

The process is long. Wato had all trust torn from her and it must be mended, slowly and carefully. Thrice-weekly sessions at first, accompanied by at least two other people, just for Wato to feel comfortable with Dr. Shichinin; twice-weekly after three months, with Sherlock in the room; then weekly after another three months, with the retinue finally retired to the waiting room after Sherlock has vetted the counselor to her satisfaction.

They don't all come every time – the logistics are too much, and the police are busy – but never less than three people accompany Wato to each appointment. Sherlock scans the counseling room as if looking for bombs hiding behind the photographs. The older women bring game tiles or cards and play in the waiting room to while the time (Mrs. Hatano trying in vain to teach mah-jongg to her other tenant). Kento spends a good deal of time on his phone, able to do much of his work in remote locations (and away from his superiors who have not yet forgiven him for punching the Minister). Sherlock never misses a session.

Mrs. Hatano spends one visit mending something on her lap while Wato and Shichinin talk. At the hour's end she smiles and holds up a little loop of beadwork. "Look, Wato! I found this in your room. It had broken. See? It's good as new again!"

Wato stares at the beaded 'bonfim' bracelet she'd been given in Syria – the one said to break when you finally had your wish come true, the one that had snapped when she'd been at, at Toru's, before Sherlock had – She slides it back on her wrist without a word. Wishes are for other people.

"Wato-san never thinks of going back to her father." Kento says in the waiting room during one of the weekly sessions.

"Wato goes where help is needed." Sherlock never looks up from her own phone. "She went to Fukushima, then Syria. It's her nature to help others who need help."

Kento looks at his strange, bratty younger sister who hasn't taken a single case since accompanying Wato to the doctor's, and says nothing more.

***

There comes a time when Wato does not end a session in quiet tears but in anger.

"Stop following me everywhere!" she explodes at the other woman, heedless of Matsuri and Tanaka starting and staring wide-eyed in the background. "I'm not a child!"

"I'm not leaving you alone with that doctor until you are well!" Sherlock shouts back.

"You're wasting your time!" Wato snaps. "I'll never be well again! I still see the bombs and the blood! I see you killing Toru over and over!"

Sherlock pushes past the wall of pain with her angry voice. "What happens when you see the bombs and the blood!"

"I know they're not real!" Wato is dead silent for a long stretch of time after that outburst. "I'm … not insane. It's… it's my mind's scar that sees bombs and blood. Dr. Shichinin says to remember that."

Sherlock doesn't nod. She only glares back at Wato, so fiercely proud of her she wants to weep. "Yes. The way I see myself killing Toru over and over. But it was the virus that killed him."

Wato's eyes widen.

"I stopped him from giving you the virus before he died." Sherlock still glares though tears run out of her own open eyes. "I know, in my mind, I did not kill him. But my heart says I did. In dreams I see his ghost."

"A ghost that you know is not real." Tears stream down the outsides of Wato's cheeks. "But the pain in your heart…"

"Very real. Yes."

Wato takes Sherlock's hand in both of hers. The gesture startles both of them. But Wato speaks. "Come in. Come back in."

Dr. Shichinin only nods when two women re-enter her office, and sit in the chairs facing her instead of Sherlock sprawling on her couch in the back; she pushes the tissue box so that it lies between both of her patients.

***

One morning in their rooms Sherlock's phone rings – and it's Reimon asking her to come see a sprawled corpse under a strange set of dancing-men figures chalked on the gatepost, and they are out the door moments later. At the scene they move around the evidence and each other with the ease of ballroom dancers; Sherlock closely examines the furniture and open window while Wato comforts the distraught maid who came upon the scene. Sherlock provides the tip for the police to arrest the culprit and leaves, the puzzle solved. They can still work together.

Their visits to Dr. Shichinin become part of their life here, in and around cases and cello music and Wato's resumed job hunts. (Her first foray is to bring a box of chocolates and an apology to the busboy and manager of the restaurant; "I am talking to a psychiatrist," she tells them, and feels no shame at the admission.)

Wato finds work in a sweet-shop. Swallowing her apprehension (that Sherlock accompanies her on her first day helps so much), she tells the proprietor up front that she has been injured in Syria and might over-react to loud noises. She is put to work wrapping candy boxes, and wears earplugs so any noises will be muffled. Nothing bad happens her first week. She receives a paycheck. This pattern repeats, and she begins to feel less of a financial burden. She smiles at the other women in the wrapping department, but does not befriend them.

Wato reads in the main room while Sherlock works at her laptop or phone. Or Wato works herself; she brings in her own laptop and writes in the diary she has started to keep.

Sherlock's mind is as sharp as ever, but her words are not as barbed as before. Well, that's not entirely true. Sherlock is still sharp to the clients, impatiently rattling off chains of deductions to the astonished visitors, and still snaps at the police (if less so to Reimon and Shibata). But her tone with Wato is different now.

Mrs. Hatano brings in clients and tea, both of which are welcomed, and introduces the strangers to the two women.

No longer do the two snap, one after the other, "She's not my friend!" when they're addressed as such.

***

They still fight. But now the angry words reach out for understanding from each other and are not just blindly seeking to hurt.

"Why didn't you tell me the virus killed Toru? Why did you let me think you'd killed him?" "How could I say anything when I was on the run? And you felt so guilty after I'd dealt with Moriwaki! I didn't want you to feel guilty about this too!"

"Did you think I'd be disgusted if I saw your shoulder wound? What if I'd struck you on that shoulder by accident?" "I didn't want anyone to see it! I felt ugly to me! I only showed it to one person before!"

"I don't like being followed by you everywhere! You don't trust me!" "I’m afraid to leave you alone because I was stupid and slow last time! I nearly got us both killed!"

"You're not just a friend to me! You're so much more!" "And you are the same! You are everything to me!"

That last exchange causes both of them to freeze and stare.

"You are Wato," Sherlock whispers, as sure as when she strode toward the gun pointed at her heart on that rooftop. "You are my Wato, my 'peaceful city.' You are not worthless, not while I value you; you are priceless. Everything about you is beautiful."

"Sherlock…" Wato Tachibana says softly. For the first time in a long time she can feel the truth of her name fill her. She does not feel ugly or naked. "You found the truth, and saved me by risking your own life." She feels soft again, kind – as kind as Sherlock is hard and sharp. She laughs a little. "We are a sword together, the soft metal at the core and the hard blade-edge forged together, a blade so flexible and strong that it can cut through anything without breaking."

Sherlock grins wide as a sunrise at that metaphor. "You should write poetry!"

Wato laughs. "I do. In my diary."

"Then you must read some to me." Sherlock's eyes are brighter. "But not now. Later. A little later." She is not good with words, not the way Wato is. But she acted on that roof when words could not save Wato, and she acts now. She holds out both her hands.

Wato takes them both.

Wato's scar does not feel ugly when Sherlock traces the length of it with her lips, drops kisses like flower blossoms on the three shrapnel pock-marks. Sherlock has a different laugh when she is happy and excited, and Wato hears it for the first time. They make other discoveries that night, too.

In the morning, as Sherlock sleepily curls into the warm patch on her bed where she had been lying, Wato snaps the cord of her 'bonfim' bracelet herself.

***

Dr. Shichinin doesn't say anything when both women walk in for their joint appointment three days later, but she smiles quietly as they forego the separate chairs and sit on the couch close together.

Sgt. Shibata looks in confusion at the pair at the next crime scene, clearly aware that something is different but not sure what; Inspector Reimon looks away and grins like an ogre.

The other ladies in the sweet-shop stare at the happily-humming woman who has replaced the silent worker.

Sherlock glares at her big brother, almost daring him to say something; a wise man, Kento doesn't say a word.

Mrs. Hatano shushes her gossiping tea-friends ("When do we get to congratulate them?") and brings their leftover snacks up to her tenants who now half-recline together on the sofa rather than use their chairs. "Mochi. These are good luck for newlyweds."

"We're not married!" Sherlock snaps at her landlady, which would sound more adamant if her head weren't in Wato's lap.

"No we're not!" Wato-san adds indignantly, her face red as a sweet potato.


End file.
